Essay Example on Sony Inc.: Data Handling and Decision Making

Task 1

Sony Inc. is the corporation that will be examined in the report on the handling of data and making decisions. In this context, Sony operates as a business and holds itself accountable for the decision process as necessary. This section will explain the main data source and movement of Sony, which is aggregated, processed, stored, and taken into account when making decisions for the organization. Sony uses both the non-financial and financial data during the process of making its decisions (Jorion & Tarmor 2001). The financial data that is used by the corporation entails the financial statements which span from its yearly balance sheets, annual income statements, annual cash flow statements, and changes in shareholders' equity (Zhu & Zong 2012). The data that is extracted from the balance sheet of the organization determines the trends in its assets and debts. The data that is sourced from the cash flow statements of the organization mainly depicts its profitability (Bhimani & Langfield-Smith 2007). On the other hand, the operating, financing, and investing activities are highlighted in the income statements of Sony. Hence, the organization combines the data from these financial statements to make important decisions regarding its valuation and worth. In contrast, the corporation uses non-financial data, including information on governance and corporate social responsibility (Orens & Lybaert 2010). This form of data has justified being crucial in the company for making policy decisions.

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Data Integrity and Identified Gaps

Data integrity involves maintaining and ensuring the consistency of the data in a life cycle (Amorosi 2019). It has evolved as one of the essential aspects of designing, enforcing, and using any systems that store, process, and retrieve data. The roles and responsibilities of data integrity professionals are to present an overview of the identification of gapless information under the electronic data that has been recorded and misreported. The data integrity professional is obligated to recognize and interview the workers and management who impact the deviations in financial reports (Webb 2019). The majority of the corporations are anxious to get rid of the integrity data gaps using the integrity of data checks. Precision, completeness, or timeliness of data highlights the validations that improve the level of trust (Moiin & Pruscino 2001). Evaluating if the control gaps are in the company, which is resulting in the determination control type, the validation required and ultimately taking the earlier broad picture of the case scenario that is occurring (Gxp 2019). It is important for the corporations to draw suggestions out of the detailed process flow that constitutes the systems and systems that need to be thoroughly assessed.

Map Between Business Functions and Data Sources

The map illuminates the substantial exploration of data and the visualization between the sources of data and functions of the business (Fiaz et al. 2016). The capture part detects the multi-structured data that retains the inputs in a raw iterative analysis form. The process part parses the data into the format of reservation that reviews and analyses the data using tools such as Pig and Hive in unearthing its value (Lydia & Swarup 2019). The label data and type of information is instrumental for discovery. Also, the pre-compute stats and data groupings are applied to facilitate the analysis. The exchange section uses the visualization tools that will enable reviewing the data to draw key insights. The EDW section involves matching that allows both systems and software to exchange details meaningfully, reimburse the claims, and other ordered data (Aziz et al. 2014). Data mapping happens in many settings with various distinct standards, sets, and terminologies (Lujan-Mora et al. 2004).

Task 2

Data Flows between the Organization and Its Stakeholders

It was confirmed that the organizational decision-making process of Sony was restrained to financial statements and other non-financial data sources. These sources of data have allowed the corporation to make decisions that have maintained its current times (Junita & Magdalena 2014). The other organizations in a similar industry increase their convectional data sources with big data to derive effective decisions. As a result of this, it would be suggested that the corporation should use its customer data to draw insights on the tastes and preferences of the consumer in the market.

The stakeholders act as the heart of Sony Corporation. Data flow between the company and these stakeholders play a significant part in the process of making decisions. The data flow between the organization and the respective stakeholders can be grasped through the stakeholders' worries. The most important data flow is observed between the organization, investors, and owners. The owners of these two groups of stakeholders are focused on return on investment for investors, income, social goals, longevity, growth, and lucrativeness for the owners of Sony (Ayuso et al. 2014). These concerns lead to obtaining the most significant information for Sony that helps to make strategic decisions. In the hierarchy, the creditors, suppliers, and creditors formulate the second most significant stakeholders for Sony Corporation. The concerns of the creditors involve the credit score and liquidity, and the client's interest focus on the value, care, and quality of the products or services (Wei et al. 2016). Data flows between the stakeholders and the organization help to make tactical decisions that involve the implementation of vital decisions (Perez Carrillo 2007). In the hierarchy, the lowest-ranked are the community, employees, and government. The topics that the government deals with are taxation, legislation, truthful reporting, positive, and negative externalities. The community deals with the conservation of the environment and job opportunities. The workers are concerned with gaining recognition in the workplace, compensation, appreciation, and improving the rates of pay. The information that is derived from the topics affecting the stakeholders is crucial in making the operational decisions in the organization.

Approach to the Improvement in Data Integrity

Data integrity is the notion of data where it is not reliable to the needs of the organization and precise throughout its process of application (Schuha et al. 2019). Hence, for the corporation to use big data associated with customer insights, it is essential for it to support data integrity. The customer data that is gathered online supports big data, and this implies that it would be analyzed through computers (Wang et al. 2019). In this sense, the validation of the information systems of Sony would be appropriate for the enhancement of the data integrity of the data, enforcement of error detection software, enforcing of audit trials, and maintaining the backup and recovery processes (Wolsk et al. 2019). In addition, the corporation should guarantee that it has trained its personnel, carried out many frequencies and internal audits levels that aim at examining its controls and procedures, and conform to a lifecycle of a software upgrade (Jaya et al. 2019).

Data Protection and Ethical Assurance Requirements

It is unavoidable that the issues of safeguarding of data and ethical assurance will happen because Sony uses the customer data to obtain insights about the products and services to offer in the market (Ethics 2019). From an ethical point of view, the gathering of data from the masses without seeking their permission poses an ethical compliance problem (Research 2019). Hence, the suggested data analytics framework for the organization is no ethical complaint (Stahl 2004; Vanclay et al. 2013).

Task 3

A statement of Strategic Decisions

There are many strategic decisions that are implemented by Sony Corporation in many areas of operations management. First, the management of Sony applies strategic decisions such as the generic strategy of differentiation that stress on optimal lucrativeness along with the principles of sustainability in designing products (O'Farrell et al. 1992). Second, strategic decisions are applied by Sony management on quality management (Murray 1988). The operations management policy of the organization stresses the attainment of and support for kando, which is presented in the vision statement and mission statement. Third, strategic decisions are applied in the process and capacity design of Sony (Bertola & Teixeira 2003). The operation managers apply the strategic decisions to maximize the use of capacity in production facilities, thus resulting in production maximization in every facility. Fourth, Sony applies strategic decisions in its location strategy to decrease operating expenses and maximize revenues. In this context, the marketing mix of Sony entails retail chains in densely populated areas, including the urban centers (Allen & Helms 2006). This facet of the marketing mix assists optimizes the productivity of the organizational sales operations. Fifth, Sony applies strategic decisions during the design of the layout and strategy to optimize human resources and information. Sixth, the management of Sony applies strategic decisions in supply chain management to uphold the sufficient supply to support the present operations and growth of the business, particularly in high-growth developing markets.

The financial data that constitute the financial statements help in making decisions. The financial statements record the activities, though, do not offer an evaluation of the data. Despite the significant role of the financial statements, they do not offer an assessment of the accounting outcomes. Many measurements and evaluations require being knowledgeable of the numbers to be capable of using the information constituted in the various financial statements for financial decision-making. It is obvious that not all the information is essential to make rational financial decisions is readily available. Financial ratios help the make decisions about the liquidity, solvency, profitability, and productivity of Sony Corporation (Schmidgall & DeFranco 2016; Adam 2014; Megaladevi 2015). The financial statements replicate historical activities and future decisions. This is possible by drawing inferences regarding trends of the distinct ratios instead of the actual historic numbers. The non-financial data of Sony Corporation help in making decisions. Non-financial information is always used for making policy decisions and offering information to assist in resource allocation in Sony Corporation.

Strategic Decision Based On Data Analytics

Sony Corporation needs to make a strategic decision on the product design it intends to release to the market. The organization must make arrangements for products such as mobile phones to satisfy the consumer (Boothroyd 1994; Collinson 1993). It is important that the company applies social media analytics to get insights into the needs and demands of its clients. The strategic decision will increase the competitive advantage of the organization in the smartphone market (Gershon & Kanayama 2002). The essence of being a first mover in creating a certain product will make Sony competitive in the market.

Identification of a Specific Dataset

To attain the decision to come up with product designs that satisfy the client, specify data from the Sony website was chosen ( https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/historical/).

Task 4

Business-Related Information and Source of Data

The dataset represents the financial information of Sony Corporation from the financial year 2017 to 2019. The fi...